Time and Space for Geniuses
by Saffronica612
Summary: The events of Dr. Who, Series 5, with characters from Sherlock BBC interwoven in. The Doctor doesn't land in Amelia Pond's backyard, but in a the Holmes'…
1. 11th Hour i

Title: Space and Time for Geniuses  
>Author: Smartkitty314<br>Summary: The events of Dr. Who, Series 5, with characters from Sherlock BBC interwoven in. The Doctor doesn't land in Amelia Pond's backyard, but in a the Holmes'…  
>Rating: T<br>Disclaimer: I own nothing. I'm only doing this for fun ;-)

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><p>Chapter 1: 11th Hour<p>

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><p>"Dear Santa."<p>

Young Sherlock closed his eyes, feeling slightly ridiculous. Santa Claus didn't exist; he had _proved_ it to his parents four years ago, writing a whole report on handwriting samples, pulling fingerprints, and demonstrating the impossibility of anyone fitting down their chimney. Since then, 'ask Santa' had become the family joke.

It didn't feel so much like a joke now. Not with the crack, glaring down from the wall, and the voices that shouldn't exist.

"Sorry to bother you, I know it's almost Easter, but there's a crack in my wall. Mycroft says it's an ordinary crack, but…"

Now he just felt stupid.

"I can hear voices, at night, so I know there's something wrong," he rushed. "So just…"

Just what? If Mycroft couldn't fix it, then…

"Maybe you can send a police man, or…"

Or what? The police were a bunch of bumbling idiots who couldn't figure anything out. Mycroft, the smartest person he knew, told him the crack was nothing, so this entire idea of his was stupid. He really ought to go to bed.

Suddenly, a sound caught his keen ears—a sort of wheezing whoosh, then a series of crashes. He rushed over to the window, to observe a large, blue, smoking box sitting on the remains of his shed.

_No obvious means of transportation, no marks in the dirt around the shed, which means the box must have fallen from the sky. However, it remained intact, leading to the conclusion that it's not made of wood. Smoke rising from inside, but no visible signs of a fire—if it were on fire at all, the wood on the outside would burn. Bigger on the inside? Says 'Police Public Call Box' on the side, those haven't been used since the 1960's and…_

Suddenly, he realized the implications.

_Okay, Santa, maybe I'll give you another chance. Right now I need to investigate._

* * *

><p>In the yard, Sherlock barely noticed how his breath misted, with the excitement rising in his chest. Around him, he buttoned up the new grey wool coat Mycroft had bought him, imagining his older brother lecturing him about taking care of his body. <em>Why bother?<em> Sherlock had retorted. _It's the brain that matters. The rest is just transport._

He approached the strange blue box cautiously; after all, if it was truly an alien spacecraft (who else would have the technology to create a flying box that was bigger on the inside?) the fact that it crashed may indicate unstable engines, meltdowns, and imminent _Boom!_ He watched it carefully, but nothing seemed to be happening. He tentatively began to inch forward…

Suddenly, the door burst open, and a grappling hook flew out. One arm, then another, then—

A normal man's head, albeit dripping wet.

"You look disappointingly human, for an alien," he said in his uncannily astute manner. "Oh, and I was right."

The man's eyebrows narrowed. "About what?"

"It is bigger on the inside, isn't it? That doesn't matter. Are you a police man?"

"Do you have an apple?"

Sherlock's turn to be surprised. Of all the responses, this was the least expected. "What?" he stuttered.

"An apple. All I can think about are apples. I love apples. Maybe I'm having a craving. Oh, I've never had cravings before!" He finished pulling himself out, jumping up, giving Sherlock time to observe him. Raggedy, torn suit, not a very good fit, wet, burn marks. Fairly tall, strong-looking, a strange yet memorable face, especially the chin. "Hair like an idiot," Mycroft would say, but he couldn't complain, he wouldn't let Mycroft cut his own black curls.

"Is your engine hydro-combustion? That might explain why you're wet."

"Hm? Oh, no, I fell in the swimming pool."

"Yes, we've already established that your machine is bigger on the inside."

"Then I climbed out through the library."

"You said you were in the swimming pool."

"So was the library. I'm sorry, you asked me if I was a police man. Why? Do you need a police man?"

"I requested someone to look into the crack in my wall. At first, it just seemed unreasonably spooky, but considering your arrival a more likely theory seems to be that the crack is extraterrestrial in origin. May I ask you a few questions?"

Suddenly, the man fell to the ground, clutching his chest, coughing out what appeared to be luminous pollen. Sherlock felt his chest tighten; he knew so little about medical science, and this man probably wouldn't even have human anatomy. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," the man replied. "Still…cooking."

"Who are you?"

He jumped to his feet. "I'm not sure. I'm still figuring that out. Call me the Doctor. Aren't you going to invite me in?" He turned to walk straight into a tree.

* * *

><p>Sherlock considered leaving 'the Doctor' (a frankly ridiculous name, because he certainly wasn't a medical doctor, and Sherlock doubted he had any University training, so no PhD either. Mycroft knew everything that went on at the University, he would have noticed any alien this bad at blending in.) outside, but he was curious. Besides, the man was hungry, and Mycroft always stressed how important it was to be aware of social norms, like feeding guests.<p>

Sherlock gave him an apple, only to see him spit it out.

Yogurt. Disgusting.

He fried up some bacon, also rejected. Beans were declared evil. Buttered toast thrown out the door, and told to "never come back!"

"Doctor?"

"Hm?"

"I've been assessing your gustatory reactions. Might I suggest a combination of foods to satisfy this elusive 'craving' of yours?"

The Doctor looked at him, half confused and half interested. "What?"

"Try…" Sherlock took a deep breath, reviewing his deduction in his head. It sounded crazy, but, "fish sticks and custard."

"Hm, that might actually—just what I need! Fish sticks and custard!" He leapt up, opened the fridge, and helped himself. "You eating anything?"

"It'll slow me down. I need my brain sharp, for thinking."

"That," said the Doctor, his mouth half full, "is absolute rubbish. You're not going to grow big and strong if you don't eat enough."

"Who cares about big and strong? Besides, Mycroft makes sure I get enough. He has me on a 15000-calorie per week diet, which he says gives me a bit of wiggle room with each day. That doesn't stop him from planning all my meals, though." Sherlock frowned, still rather upset about this fact. The Doctor just looked amused.

"Mycroft your dad? Where are your parents? I'm surprised we haven't woken them yet."

"They're gone. Mycroft is my brother. He's out at the university party, collecting blackmail. Not that he needs more. He's trying to organize the campaign of one of the upperclassmen for president of some big club."

"So Mycroft's your brother, and you are?"

"Holmes. Sherlock Holmes."

The Doctor smiled. "That's a good name. That's like a fairy tale name…no, not a fairy tale, a murder mystery. Detective Sherlock Holmes. You ever thought of being a private detective, Sherlock?"

"Sounds boring."

"Boring? Are you kidding? Solving crimes, saving the day—"

"Most crimes are committed by idiots, and idiots have accidents, leaving a whole trail of mistakes like a giant arrow pointing to them. There aren't enough smart criminals. A few serial killers, maybe, but homicides don't come up often enough to be a feasible career, and I don't want to have to deal with the boring stuff."

"What if the police consulted you when they had fun stuff?"

"A consulting detective? Doesn't exist."

"Since when have you ever let anything as trivial as that stop you? Make the job up. You'll be the only one in the world."

Sherlock smiled. It appealed to his sense of ego, to be the only consulting detective in the world.

"You know, you're taking this all rather well," the Doctor observed

"What do you mean?"

"Alien crashes into your shed, eats fish custard, and starts chatting about serial killers, and you act as if it's perfectly normal. So you know what?"

"What?"

"That must be one scary crack in your wall."

* * *

><p>They stood in his bedroom, staring at the creepy crack in his wall. "So?" Sherlock asked. "What's your analysis?"<p>

The man took a strange silver device out of his pocket, activating it. Sherlock observed a whirling noise and the end lit up blue. The man consulted it as if it provided him information.

_Alien technology, some sort of scanning device, judging from the sound and vibrations, probably—_"Sonic?"

"Hm? Yes, sonic screwdriver. Now this crack, it's not in your wall."

"What do you mean? Of course it's—"

"No, if you knocked the wall down then it still would be there, because it's not in your wall. Two parts of time and space that never should have been pressed together that are touching. So. That means it's easy to fix."

"How?"

"We open it, then it snaps closed."

Sherlock looked skeptical. "That seems rather touchy-feely, like people who restart their computers when they don't know what to do."

"Trust me, I'm the Doctor. I know what I'm doing. You know when a grown-up tells you that everything's okay, but you know they're lying just to try to make you feel better?" He offered Sherlock his hand.

"They generally don't. Well, some of the more stupid ones will, but I think it's to get me to be quiet more than to actually reassure me."

"Well, shut up, because everything's going to be okay."

He delivered this line with a perfectly straight face and a twinkle in his eye. Sherlock decided that he liked this strange Doctor very much.

* * *

><p>The crack lit up, a strange, glowing blue, revealing blackness beyond. For a moment, nothing happened, then a giant blue eye appeared.<p>

_Prisoner Zero has escaped! Prisoner Zero has escaped!_

"That's the voices," Sherlock said. "This is another alien. Is it Prisoner Zero?"

"No, these are the wardens, the Atraxi." He turned to address the giant blue eye. "Yes, yes, we know, Prisoner Zero has escaped. But why? Why are you telling us this?" A thin star of blue flew out from the eye, through the crack, and into the Doctor's midsection. He fell over, his sonic screwdriver dropping, and the crack snapped shut.

Rummaging through his pocket, he pulled out a small black pad. "Psychic paper," he explained. "_Prisoner Zero has escaped._ But why would they be telling us that?"

"Obvious. Zero must have escaped through the crack."

The Doctor scrunched up his face in annoyance again. "There's something wrong here, something in the corner of my eye, I just need to _think, think,_ I—"

_BWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!_

"Oh, no, no, no!" The self-proclaimed Doctor leapt up, and dashed down the stairs, running for his machine, presumably the cause of the alarm. "Engines are phasing, a quick hop, five minutes into the future, should stabilize them."

"Wait!" Sherlock shouted, panting for breath. "Take me with you!"

"Can't, the radiation will fry you. Five minutes, I promise."

"That's what people always say," Sherlock grumbled.

The Doctor jumped down, and put his hands on Sherlock's shoulders, staring him straight in the eye. "Am I people? Do I even look like people?"

"No. For one thing, people don't dress like you do. Also, most people don't have two hearts—come on, obvious, I can feel your pulse through your hands, and—"

The Doctor put a finger on his lip, quieting him.

"Then trust me. I'm the Doctor."

Then he jumped back down into his marvelous machine with a shout of "Geronimo!" and the machine began to wheeze again, and dematerialized. Sherlock hurried back upstairs, grabbed his suitcase, and threw in a few extra clothes. Then he hurried back down into the garden and waited.

He waited all night, and no one came. When he woke up the next morning, in his own bed, he knew that Mycroft knew, but his brother didn't say anything, so he didn't either. Sherlock would have thought it was a particularly vivid dream if he hadn't woken up with his coat on, his suitcase packed under his bed, the shed completely and utterly smashed, and the crack in his wall gone.

_When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth._ Last night an alien had fallen into his yard, given him a taste of adventure, then disappeared.

_Five minutes._ Exploding time machine, he should have known that it wouldn't just be five minutes. More likely than not, the Doctor had died, taking the promise of exploring the universe, everything that ever was and ever would be, with him.

_I _am _alive_, Sherlock reminded himself, _which is less than I would be if I had gone with him._ A lot of days, though, when life was so _boor_ing that he couldn't stand it, he wished he had just gone off and died with the Doctor. Maybe he would have been able to help, stop the time machine from exploding.

He made a friend, or rather, the one person in school who would talk to him, and only because John Watson was an outcast, too, teased about his lesbian sister in the strictly conventional town of Leadsworth. Watson played 'Raggedy Doctor' with him, and looked at his wall full of carefully drawn pictures, map references, legends collected of a strange man called the Doctor in any time of human history. Sherlock wasn't so much sure that he wanted the Doctor to come back as he was determined to prove that he had been _right._

He got into drugs because using them made him feel strange, like maybe what flying around through the stars might feel. He dropped them after a little while, because he didn't like feeling so dependent, but the mind-numbing bliss of addiction still called to him, like an itch in the back of his mind. He started taking cases for the police to ignore it.

And so the little boy who waited learned that people, whether they looked human or not, were idiots, and could never be trusted.

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><p>an: I'm going to be doing the whole series. Read it. Get your friends to read it. Drop me a review if you'd like. Spread this story!

I would like to hear how you think I managed to fit their characters into the recycled dialogue. Can you imagine it? Drop me a review telling me how you thought I did.


	2. 11th Hour ii

Chapter 2: 11th Hour (ii)

He's figured out where Prisoner Zero was hiding. The room, the door, in the corner of his eye, it had a _perception_ filter, no wonder he didn't want to look at it. "Sherlock!" he cried. A detached part of his brain noticed that it was light outside, he must have been a few hours late, but surely Prisoner Zero wouldn't hurt Sherlock? The boy knew nothing.

"Sherlock!" he shouted, even more frantic. "Sherlock, I—"

That was about the point where the cricket bat hit him.

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><p>John Watson stood awkwardly in the ward as Dr. Ramsden stormed in. "What is it this time?" she demanded.<p>

"They were calling for you," he explained patiently. He _hated_ being treated like an idiot.

"You do realize that these patients are all comatose? As in _they can't speak_?"

Watson gritted his teeth and waited. Any moment now…any moment…

"_doctor…"_

"Doctor!"

"doctor"

"doctor…"

Their lips moving, unconsciously, to form words. Dr. Ramsden looked completely flabbergasted. John suppressed the desire to say, "I told you so." Okay, perhaps spending so much time with Sherlock was a bad influence; he had started to pick up on a few of his friend's more arrogant traits. He didn't treat everyone else like they were morons, persay, but he enjoyed a certain amount of respect for his own intellect, and he refused to be walked over.

"There's more; I've seen these patients—"

"Walking around town? Yes, the staff informed me about this. It's impossible. We have them under 24 hour surveillance. We would know if their pulse elevated. Why are you handing me your phone?"

Sherlock wouldn't dismiss him. Sherlock would be excited, and Sherlock would have instantly realized that John was offering evidence. "It's a camera, too," he explained, as if she had a particular brand of stupidity.

Obviously, the doctor didn't get it. "You know, John, I think maybe you need to take some time off. Right now."

As calmly as he could, he walked out of the room. Sherlock hadn't talked to him for six months—he was afraid his friend was back on drugs—medical exams were coming up, he sister had started drinking again, and now he had basically been fired. His day couldn't get any worse if aliens came and decided to blow up the sun or something.

* * *

><p>"Hello? Yes, thank you. I caught a stranger breaking and entering at 221 Baker's Lane. If you could please send backup, that would be brilliant."<p>

"Where's Sherlock Holmes?" the Doctor demanded, trying to rub his head and figure out what was going on. Like why he was chained to the floor at the other end of the hallway. The last thing he remembered was a cricket bat…

"He doesn't live here anymore," Sherlock said. If the Doctor was smart at all, he would have seen the shed, which meant that six months would be the shortest time frame possible. Additionally, his resemblance to his child-self was undeniable, and the Doctor would come to this conclusion quickly. The easiest thing to do would be pretend to be—

"I'm Mycroft Holmes, owner of this house and Sherlock's guardian." On a note of brilliance designed to manipulate this Doctor's guilt-emotions, he added, "I sent Sherlock to a…_special_ boarding school six months ago, he wouldn't stop raving about aliens and blue boxes falling out of the sky. But don't worry, the country's best psychoanalysts are on his case now."

"No, no, no, NO!" The Doctor shouted. "No, it was five minutes, I said five minutes, I _promised._"

If Sherlock were an empath, he might have felt a twinge of sympathy. As it was, he rather enjoyed getting this…revenge.

"So you're the person who lives here now?"

"Hm? Oh, yes."

"How many rooms are on this floor?"

"Why?" He honestly couldn't understand where the Doctor was going with this one, unless it had something to do with the Prisoner Zero businesses. Except Prisoner Zero didn't exist; he had searched the house for months, and there was nothing out of the norm. Sherlock wondered briefly if this were a hallucination, but he had been clean for the last three days, and besides, the cocaine he took and the dosage amount he carefully measured didn't lead to hallucinations.

"Because it will change your life. How many? Count with me."

"Five. One, two, three, four, five." He nodded his head in the direction of all the rooms.

"Six. Look behind you, right where you don't want to look, right in the corner of your eye."

Sherlock did, and noticed a door at the end of the hallway. "Wait, you're saying that's a room? Storage. There's nothing in there. That's impossible."

_Why didn't he notice the room before?_ It had always seemed…just like a part of the wall. But he had searched there…hadn't he?

_He didn't remember._

Slowly, carefully, he took a step towards the door, then another.

"Wait, Mycroft, come back! Unlock me! Wait! Don't go into that room! Stop, no! Why aren't you listening to my? Why doesn't anyone listen to me? Do I just have a face that no one listens to?"

Silence. No response, then:

"My sonic screwdriver. Where's my sonic screwdriver?"

"Silver, blue on the end?" came Sherlock-playing-Mycroft's baritone.

"Must have rolled under the door," the Doctor muttered.

"Yeah, and then jumped up onto the table. Think, Doctor, I know you're fairly smarter than the majority of the idiots here. We've got ourselves an alien here, probably not humanoid judging by the saliva surrounding it—wait a second, I need to get a sample—" His voice paused for a minute as he took a vial out of his pocket, gathered his saliva sample, then picked up the screwdriver with his latex gloves.

"Mycroft, get out of there now!"

"Ah, so the alien is in here with me, judging by the concern in your voice? But it's not attacking me, which means that it doesn't think I'm a threat unless I see it. Of course it doesn't; I've suspected it was here for years and it did nothing. So, its form must be its greatest weakness, which means the hospital case suddenly makes a lot more sense. It had all the signs of alien intervention, probably psychic because no traces of drugs. John would—"

John, who he hadn't talked to for months, John, who yelled at him for trying to escape the boredom, John, who was going to become a doctor (he knew John would pass the exams; despite John's worry, Sherlock calculated he knew more than enough to pass with flying colors.) John, who planned on enlisting as an army doctor and would be leaving as soon as he passed his tests. _Leaving him._

"Not important, no. But I need more data, I need to see it."

"Mycroft, don't look behind you! Get out of there now."

Behind him, the corner of his eye. He could sense it already. He gave a few fake turns, then whirled his head around.

Grey, semi-translucent giant snake-like, no, more eel-like creature, attacked to the ceiling. "Aren't you a beauty," he said. "Now, you've probably picked up the local language here, you've had enough time to establish a base, why stay in Leadworth? You could've gone anywhere, unless you were waiting for them to find you, but why here?"

The thing opened its mouth, showing a huge number of needle-like white fangs. It didn't open its mouth to talk, either, but rather too…well, probably something along the lines of bite his head off. "Okay, we'll talk later, I'll go now." He rushed back out of the door, tossing the screwdriver to the Doctor, who banged it a few times before sonic-ing the door. Orange light and strange noises emanated from behind.

"Will that hold him?"

"No, it's an interdimensional alien criminal that's trying to kill us, they're all terrified of _wood._"

Sherlock gave him a _look_ that practically screamed _'do you think I'm some sort of __idiot__?_' "I was actually asking if you did something incredibly clever with your sonic screwdriver to fortify the wood. Of course wood wouldn't hold it!"

"No, what did the nasty alien do to you. Did he slobber all over you?"

"Talking to inanimate objects is a classic sign of stress."

"Well, if you would just unlock me, or if _you_ would just start working…backup, you called for backup, is the backup coming?"

Suddenly, the door burst open, and a man in a dog stepped forward.

"Ah, multi-form, very clever, but you've got the heads wrong, see?" The Doctor explained. Sure enough, both the dog and man moved simultaneously, as if they only had one brain between them. "But you would need a running psychic link, how would you do that?"

Sherlock recognized the man instantly from his case files. "Peter Moyes. Manual laborer, lives alone, loves his dog more than any human relationship. Why would you choose him? Easy to imitate? No one you'd have to interact with?"

The man started barking. "You're right, definitely multiform," Sherlock observed.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you? Do you have any sense of the danger we're in?" the Doctor asked. "Nevermind. We're safe, because my good friend Mycroft here, he called backup—"

"That was fake. Surely you could tell my cell phone wasn't on? I was trying to intimidate you into revealing more information."

"I _know_, that was a just cleverly designed lie to save our lives. Okay, we don't have backup, and that is _definitely_ why we're safe, because only we've seen you. If we had backup, then—"

'_ATTENTION PRISONER ZERO: THE HUMAN RESIDENCE IS SURROUNDED. PRISONER ZERO WILL VACATE THE RESIDENCE, OR THE HUMAN RESIDENTS WILL BE INCINERATED. PRISONER ZERO WILL VACATE…'_

"What is that?" Sherlock asked.

"Backup. Alright, one more time, we _do_ have backup, and that is definitely why we're safe…"

Prisoner Zero took that moment to go into another room, to try to locate the sound of the blasting announcement. The Doctor hit his screwdriver one more time, got it working, then released himself from the handcuffs. The two men took advantage of the alien's distraction to run out of the house and to the…

"Dammit, it's locked, Tardis is rebuilding, won't let me in."

"Should we head to town then?" Sherlock suggested. "The hospital—"

Suddenly, something caught the Doctor's eye.

"This shed, I broke it."

He was going to figure it out. Sherlock could see his clever little lie falling apart. Oh well, it wouldn't have held in town when people started calling him 'Sherlock.' Better to get this little scene over with now. "A very astute observation," he said scathingly. "We rebuilt it. Are you ever going to pay us back?"

"No, no, but it's grown old, ten years old…"

The Doctor sniffed the shed, laid his cheek on it, and suddenly little things started to make sense. "Mycroft's" uncanny resemblance to the young Sherlock, too similar to be explained by 'brother,' his observations, his immediate acceptance of alien life forms, his lack of questioning about the Tardis, certain comments _('I've suspected it was here for years…')_. Years. Twelve years.

Sherlock could see the dots connecting in the Doctor's head. "Come on. We've got to go. Now."

"This is twelve years old. Why did you tell me six months?"

"Come on, it's not important, Prisoner Zero's coming and—"

"No, this is important, why did you say six months?"

All the fake tension disappeared from Sherlock's face, replaced by an intensely bored expression. "No, the proper question here is why did you say five minutes? But like I said, it doesn't matter. We've finally got something interesting going on, and you want to worry about a twelve-year-old promise that you broke. Are you trying to_ bore_ me?"

The Doctor looked in shock as Sherlock stalked off.

Suddenly, the implications of what he had done fully hit him. The kid had been a complete genius—fearless, brilliant, cool head, probably with an intellect to rival his own. He had given the kid a taste of the fascinating bigger universe, then just left him there. What would it be like, to not only be isolated by your own intelligence, but also because everyone thinks you're crazy, because you know something that none of them know. Because you see a bigger picture that they're little minds can't grasp.

How many times had Sherlock actually thought that he was crazy? What if he had considered suicide, or begun to self-medicate? Humans in the twenty-first century did all sorts of crazy, dangerous, harmful things to suppress their feelings.

He had pushed a genius little kid over the edge, probably caused him to become a sociopath (obvious signs—lack of emotion, how easy he lied).

Well, once he figured out how to capture one shape-shifting alien with a bunch of perfect human disguises and stop another group of aliens from blowing up the planet with about half an hour and no Tardis, then maybe he could worry about helping fix the relationship with this little boy even though he was rubbish with relationships and he was somewhat scared what would happen if he took Sherlock into the Tardis…and he thought the Master was bad.

Yeah, one thing at a time. Saving the planet was enough for his to-do list right now.

* * *

><p>an: I understand that Sherlock lives on 221B Baker's street, in London. This is a crossover. Baker's Lane sounded more…Leadworth-y than Baker's street. If you haven't caught on yet, I'm not an idiot, all the little details are chosen very carefully.

John was surprisingly hard to write at first because recycling the dialogue with his character—he wouldn't allow himself to be walked on at all, but at the same time, I didn't want to make him seem arrogant. Distracted and worried about Sherlock seemed to be a nice explanation, though. Tell me what you think.

Oh, and I'm not writing a slash story. Just thought I should clarify. John and Sherlock are not going to be in the sort of relationship that Amy and Rory were in. If you read it with slash goggles on…well, let me just say that I'll try to make the subtext as obvious as it is in Moffat's cannon. (Which is rather…_strong_, but that's a discussion for another day). So just like the real show, chose whether you interpret it as friendship or more…I am informing you of this now because flaming because you think this is a slash story is completely idiotic and shows me that you can't read, or if you're begging me to make Sherlock and John, I don't know, kiss or something (this is rated T, not M), then you're wasting your time. I'm not trying to be harsh. I'm just saying, either wear your slash goggles or your non-slash goggles, but don't bother me.

Did that come out a bit harsh? I'm not telling you not to review, just find something intelligent to say.

Oh, speaking of reviews, I want to thank everyone who managed to find this story, either from browsing the crossover section, or from my shameless advertising, for reviewing. And for all the Story Alerts, etc. Authors love to feel the love!


	3. 11th Hour iii

Time and Space for Geniuses  
>by Smarkitty314<p>

* * *

><p>Chapter 3: The Eleventh Hour (iii)<p>

* * *

><p>"So what was with the cricket bat? And pretending to be your brother?"<p>

"Seemed like a reasonable response at the time, guaranteeing my physical safety and gathering information without offering you any."

"But a _cricket_ bat!"

"Twelve years."

"A _cricket bat!_"

"Twelve years and four psychiatrists."

"Four psychiatrists?"

"I didn't tell them about you—Mycroft assumed it was all a story, and that my new obsession with tracing extracurricular life interactions was merely that—a childish obsession. He never really figured out about you, either. However, after I refused to talk with any of my classmates for four months straight, he began sending me to the psychiatrists. They did try to institutionalize me once, worrying about 'Anti Social Personality Disorder.' Complete rubbish, I put my foot down, and Mycroft stopped bothering me. Why are we having this conversation again? Aren't we supposed to be doing something interesting?"

"Yeah, saving the world. Wait a second—"

An ice cream truck ahead of them was blasting the refrain:_ Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence, or the human residents will be incinerated. Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence, or…_

"It's supposed to be playing Clair de Lune," the confused ice cream man stuttered.

"Hi, may I borrow this? Yeah, thanks." The Doctor pointed his sonic at the radio, rapidly switching stations, but the same refrain was everywhere.

"We weren't saved by an ice cream truck," Sherlock said.

"What? Hm, no, deep breaths, it's okay, life can be this crazy around me. Being saved by an ice cream truck is not the strangest thing to happen and I need to see—"

He veered off, rushing towards a house. Sherlock followed him, saying, "No, I don't care how ridiculous it sounds, the ice cream was too far away. Only explanation is that this message is playing from all the communications in the village, so it was probably Mycroft's big television that would make that much noise. However, the Atraxi had no way of knowing that Prisoner Zero would stay here, in Leadworth, so it's all over the world. Obvious."

The Doctor burst into a house, ignoring him, greeting the old lady. "Hello, I'm here doing a special on…television problems in this neighborhood." He flashed the psychic paper, brushing past the old woman's stutters about how she was just about to call. Sherlock hastened into the room after him, still rather annoyed at his deductions being completely disregarded. The Doctor, as usual, seemed oblivious. "And, um, I hired Sherlock as an, um, assistant."

"Here on a case, Mrs. Hudson," he explained.

"I thought Mycroft said that you were supposed to stay at home, under constant supervision."

The Doctor's ears perked up. "Constant supervision? Why?"

Sherlock gave him a glare. "Mycroft doesn't seem to think that fending off boredom is a good excuse for doing recreational."

"Recreational? As in drugs? You?"

"What?"

"_You?_"

"Shut up." For the first time, Sherlock looked somewhat uncomfortable. "You're worse than my brother."

"I'm the Doctor, I'm worse than anyone's big brother." Suddenly, he seemed to realize that he had an audience. He turned back to Mrs. Hudson. "And that's not how I'm introducing myself. Now, the television."

The eye of the Atraxi was repeating its refrain. After a few attempts to change the channel, the Doctor gave up and scanned the radio. "Russian, German, French, Chinese…it's all over the world. They're not talking about your house, they're talking about the world."

"I told you. Took you long enough. You know, if you had actually listened to me—"

"I do recognize you!" Mrs. Hudson proclaimed. "You're the Doctor, aren't you? The Raggedy Doctor! Sherlock used to—"

"Shut up." Luckily, however, the Doctor was nearly out of the door by now, and didn't seem to be listening. He ran into Jeff by the doorway, and proceeded to look him up and down, still talking to himself about the impending alien threat. "Mid-sized battle fleet in the sky, they'd need to seal off the upper atmosphere, power up, that would give us twenty minutes, you think, yeah, twenty minutes."

"That's the Raggedy Doctor!"

Sherlock wanted to face-palm. All of these people, stating the obvious, and this conversation had been _over_ twelve years ago.

"The Raggedy Doctor, you know, you set up a whole website, passed out 'Have you seen this man' posters, and didn't you try to infiltrate some government agency—"

"Torchwood. Mycroft forbade me, something about how even _he_ stayed out of Torchwood's business, but I still hacked into their files. Surprising how very little they know, they seem to try to clean up and cover up alien messes than worry about preventative action."

The Doctor looked between them. "Wait, you—"

"This is not the conversation to be having at the time. We've got to get to the hospital." He rushed out of the house, back towards the center of town, and this time, the Doctor came with him

"The hospital? Why? Where are we?"

"Leadworth."

"Does it have an airport?"

"No. Thirty minutes from the nearest town with an airport."

"And twenty minutes to save the world. A nuclear power plant?"

"Are you kidding? As if Mycroft would let me live anywhere near a nuclear power plant. No, this is the most boring town in the world, and he's basically got me under house arrest here, 'for my own good.' We've got a post office, and it's closed today, Sunday."

"What's that?"

"A duck pond."

"Where are the ducks?"

"We don't have any ducks."

"Then how do you know it's a duck pond?"

"Does it matter?"

"I don't know." The Doctor kneeled down, examining the pond, then he spasmed, gasping, clutching his chest. Sherlock wondered if he was mad. Why the pond? The pond had nothing to do with anything.

Suddenly, the sun went out, or, rather, the aliens must have been using their technology to manipulate the heavens. Sherlock felt a little bit out of his capacity. "Doctor?" he called. A few seconds later, the sun was back, but far larger. "Doctor, whatever they're doing, it's beginning. I suspect they've done something to our atmosphere because the wouldn't be able to move the earth's orbit, not without us noticing a change in temperature—"

"Sealed off the upper atmosphere, getting ready to boil us. And look at you, the human race. The end comes, as it always was going to, down the end of a camera phone."

He stood up. "I saw something, but I missed it. What? What?" He bashed his palm into his forehead.

"Oh! The nurse! Stop that nurse!"

Sherlock had a very bad suspicion of exactly who that nurse was, and in his opinion, the entire situation had spiral out of his control far too quickly. "No."

The Doctor looked completely confused. "What did you say?"

"No." Sherlock grabbed onto his necktie and yanked him towards a parking car, grabbing the keys from a rather confused man. He slammed the Doctor's tie in the door, then locked the car, effectively holding him captive. "You can explain exactly who you are and what you're doing here."

The man whose car had been commandeered looked somewhat shaken up. "You know, Sherlock, I will be needing my car back—"

"Go get coffee," Sherlock ordered, and that was the end the discussion.

"Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes until the end of the world."

"Than you better explain very quickly."

"Everything I told you the day I met you was true. I'm a time traveler called 'The Doctor' and—"

Sherlock quickly shook his head. "No, the Atraxi show up when you show up. What do you have to say for yourself? Torchwood doesn't really know anything about you, either, except that you're all over our history—and our future, I suspect—and there's always trouble when you're around. Are you some sort of agent for them? Or are you working for Prisoner Zero? Why are you here?" Sherlock's voice became increasingly livid. Under the flash of his silver-blue eyes, the Doctor could see the real question he was asking: _Why did you say five minutes, and how can you ever expect me to trust you again?_

The Doctor had rarely felt afraid for his own life before, but standing there, trapped by this seething man, at his mercy (well, a voice in the back of his head told him he could merely take his tie off, but Sherlock probably would have been able to see him and stop him and…) Trust. It would take a long time to rebuilt Sherlock's trust, but here was as good as any a place to start. The Doctor took a deep breath.

"Coincidence; we have nothing to do with each other. The Atraxi latched onto my signal, though, so they're only late because I am. I'm here because I promised, and because this is what I do. I'm the Doctor, and I go around and help people, help planets, help whole civilizations in all of time and space. And right now there are aliens up there that are threatening _your_ world, _your_ species, _your_ civilization. Please, twenty minutes, trust me for twenty minutes."

Sherlock frowned. Trusting the Doctor, coming to terms with all sort of emotional…_things_…that wasn't his problem, that wasn't what he wanted to deal with. No, his problem was he wasn't a little kid anymore, and he wouldn't accept the Doctor treating him as anything less than an equal. "No, you trust _me_ for twenty minutes. I'm not here to stand around in awe about how smart you are. I can work things out just as well as you, even if I lack your knowledge of advanced technology or alien societies, I can still put clues together, so if you want me to help, then you have to _listen_ to me."

The Doctor swallowed. "Fine."

"Fine." Sherlock unlocked the car. "Let's go catch that nurse."

* * *

><p>John Watson was taking pictures of Peter Moyes, the coma patient who Dr. Ramsden refused to admit was walking around. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a man that greatly resembled Sherlock (which was impossible because Mycroft had Sherlock under constant supervision), speaking with another man, who was babbling about "everyone here taking pictures of the sun, but you're taking pictures of that man. Why?"<p>

Suddenly, he realized the pair was standing in front of him.

It was Sherlock. It really was Sherlock, and…but it was impossible. The other man looked like…like the Raggedy doctor. It was impossible. (Somehow, he thought that he had already thought that.) "But you didn't exist. You can't be here, you didn't exist."

The Doctor, who didn't really have time to go through the whole 'No, I really do exist' conversation again, grabbed his shirt and shook him violently. "Why were you taking pictures of him?" he demanded.

John's shocked brain answered before he even realized it. "Because he can't be here, because he's—"

"_in a hospital, in a coma_," the Doctor finished with him. "Knew it, multiform, you see, needs psychic link with a living, but _dormant_, mind."

"Yep. You know, you're rather slow sometimes. I've been trying to get you to the hospital for the last fifteen minutes."

The Doctor looked confused. "Oh. That's why? I thought you were going to…"

"Introduce you to his friend?" John butted in.

Sherlock snorted. "John Watson. Colleague, past classmates, helps me out on cases every once in a while when I need a medical opinion."

"Oh, thanks," John said. However, Prisoner Zero's loud, angry bark muted out any other words that John may have tried to say.

The Doctor stalked forward. "Prisoner Zero," he drawled. Almost as if on cue, an Atraxi spaceship flew into view, hovering around a tower, searching. "See, that ship up there is scanning the area for non-terrestrial technology. And nothing says _non-terrestrial_ like a sonic screwdriver!"

The Doctor raised his sonic screwdriver into the air. All of the Earth technology went haywire.

Sherlock wondered if he ought to point out that the sonic screwdriver wasn't actually doing anything, it was making the earth technology overreact, which would in turn disguise any of its own traces. Basically, the Doctor was creating a huge scene for nothing.

Sure enough, the screwdriver blew out after a few seconds, and the Atraxi flew off.

"No, no, no!" the Doctor shouted. "Don't do that! He's here! _Prisoner Zero is here!_"

The ship was far gone by now. The Doctor's shouts were pointless, another one of those emotional reactions. Sherlock wasted no time staring at Prisoner Zero, watching carefully for its next move. As expected, the alien deconstructed its psychic stolen form and disappeared down a drain. The piping led towards the hospital.

"TARDIS, no sonic screwdriver, twenty minutes to save the world. I can do it."

Sherlock snatched the phone from John, earning a sharp squawk which he promptly ignored. "Watson's phone has pictures of all of the forms that this multi-form alien takes. If you could somehow communicate this to the Atraxi, then they would be able to capture it. They would then have no reason to destroy the earth."

The Doctor snatched up the phone. "Brilliant. I need your friend—" (John looked up hopefully), "not you, the good-looking one, with the laptop."

"Oh, thanks."

"You mean Jeff?" Sherlock volunteered.

"Oh, _thanks._"

"Jeff! With the laptop! The nice, _big_ laptop, because you know what going on right now, somewhere on the Internet? A huge meeting with all the smartest brains on Earth."

Sherlock made up his mind. "Well, I'll only get in the way. You've obviously got a plan. I say John and I go to the hospital and try to stall Prisoner Zero. Oh, come on, it's obviously at the hospital, the drain it disappeared down leads there, besides the fact that it will want to protect all of its dormant minds, make sure we do nothing to break it's connection. Come on, John, we need to make sure it doesn't disappear back underground!"

The Doctor had already run off. John Watson just stood staring at where he had once stood. John's entire rational world had pretty much been shaken to pieces. "But…but how can he be real?" he demanded.

Sherlock didn't grace him with an answer, but rather yanked him towards his car.

* * *

><p>an: And I finally started stealing dialogue for Sherlock, too, although there's a lot more in the next chapter. Confrontation between Sherlock and the Doctor felt a bit weird, but it was inevitable; no way Sherlock would act like a _normal_ companion (not to say Amy is a normal companion at all. Or any of the companions were really _normal._ Actually, if you think about it, there's no such thing as a normal person). I'm trying to balance staying true to the original plot, staying true to the original script, and staying true to the original characters, and at some moments, those seem to be completely clashing objectives.

I should probably clarify something—Mycroft's 'supervision' is more of the cameras/surveillance/threats to institutionalize him if he leaves the house rather than actually hiring a nanny or assigning security guards to the house. Those would be a lot easier to avoid.

Oh, thank you for the amazing comments, especially warning me about the dangers of repeating dialogue. Special thanks to the42jabberwocky for bouncing around ideas with me. Sort of like a beta reader. I've never had a beta reader before, which is kind of strange and a tad hypocritical because I've beta-ed people myself and it's usually my #1 recommendation to new writers. Well, if anyone thinks I desperately need one, or wants to volunteer…

Other than that, leave more intelligent reviews! (Wait, I just realized that sounded sort of insulting. I'm not getting mad at my reviewers for being unintelligent; on the other hand, I'm saying that your reviews were quite intelligent and well thought-out, and I hope you leave more of them. Well. Sorry. That certainly sounded a lot better in my head. Yeah, I'm just digging myself in deeper here. Um, you're smart. Maybe. I'm not sure because I don't know you. Drop me an intelligent review and I'll tell you. If you're smart, I mean. And thank you. For reading the story and caring to review. Yeah, I'll stop talking now. Or writing. Sorry!)


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